


Qualitative Reasoning

by ShevatheGun



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Superman - All Media Types, Superman: The Animated Series
Genre: Bad Decisions, Bisexuality, Cisswap, Conner "Kon-El" Luthor-Kent, Domestic Disputes, Female!Lex Luthor, Femlex, Gen, Genderbending, Mother-Son Relationship, One-Sided Attraction, POV Bisexual Character, POV Second Person, President Lex, Racebending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2040387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShevatheGun/pseuds/ShevatheGun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conner "Kon-El" Luthor-Kent isn't particularly well-versed in owning his mistakes. His mother, Lex Luthor, isn't particularly well-versed in letting him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Qualitative Reasoning

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be a drabble.
> 
> I know. I know! You're looking at the word counter, and you're looking at me, and you're looking straight into the camera like this is an episode of The Office. I know. Me too.
> 
> Because this was intended to be a drabble, derivative of a larger work that (at the time I'm writing this) has yet to be posted, it contains certain allusions to things that are not currently explicable. They will be at a later date. That date is not now.
> 
> You're smart cookies, though. I'm confident you'll be able to follow along. 
> 
> (Credit for inspiring this would-be drabble goes to amissedarrow. The original prompt was "relaxation".)

After the incident in Hong Kong, Raven – much to your dismay – starts to make very real and pointed  _noise_  about you receiving actual training for your TK. It isn’t like you didn’t think she would, and when the hospital bills start landing on your mother’s desk you get this weird feeling in your stomach, like you’ve swallowed cement blocks. You get it. You watch your mother review the damage reports with a strangely contemplative look on her face and you get it. You do.

That doesn't mean you have to like it. 

It isn't Raven's fault, necessarily. She's nice enough. A little abrasive, but your mother is  _Lex Luthor_ , for Christ's sake. If anything, you just wish you could get more out of her. It feels like she doesn't  _like you_  very much, but Damian says that's all in your head, and a stupid thing to focus on, besides. Rex just makes bestiality jokes. You're smart enough not to repeat any of them in mixed company. 

You certainly don't take the kind of reproach to the whole mess that your dad does. His suspicion of Raven is obvious and humiliating. For someone who's supposed to see the good in everyone, he sure is stubborn once he's made up his mind about someone. He even shows up to your first few lessons and just lingers, awkwardly, in the background, arms folded and chest puffed up like an angry turkey.

It's your mother who puts a stop to that one: "What's the worst she can do, Clark?" she says, perched over her wristbound even at the dinner table. "Summon Satan? You don't think you can beat the King of the Damned in an arm wrestling match?"

And that's a decent point, so eventually he lets up, though you can tell it still bothers him. Maybe it isn't Raven that's the problem. Maybe it's that it's so painfully obvious that he has someone else in mind, someone he wants to entrust you to and can't. You maybe ask him about it once, when you're walking through the Rose Garden, but you're not allowed out on patrol until you can prove a mastery over your TK, and your mother has ears everywhere and a very short temper. Your dad looks around uneasily when you ask, which is how you know it's a taboo subject, and then looks pointedly up at the night sky, towards the red glow of Mars. 

"I'll tell you about it when you're older," he says, sounding very sad all at once, and you let him leave it at that.

There are sides of your parents that you don't like to be exposed to, and your dad's yet-unhealed scars from all that he lost in the war you avoid like a plague, as though his quiet misery might be contagious.

* * *

Raven touches the center of your back and you spook, scrambling to look like you didn't just doze off. 

"Sit up," she says. 

"I'm sitting up!" you say. You're not sitting up. Well, you are now - you weren't, then. "Look at how up I'm sitting." 

"And stay awake," she says, ignoring you. "You're bad enough at meditation as it is without napping through it." 

"Wh- Hey, I'm great at meditation. I'm so great at meditation that I just skip straight over the meditation altogether and head straight for the obstacle course of dreamland."

"Funny," Raven says, mouth not even tugging at the edges.

"I am!" you say insistently, like you're going to convince her. "I'm really funny! Seriously, look at me. Look at how funny I am."

"I dated someone who could turn into a tarsier at will," she says. 

"Wait, what's a tarsier?"

She makes you wait until the end of the lesson to show you, which is stupid, because you spend the entire rest of the lesson wondering what a tarsier is, and broiling in your own frustration that she doesn't like you. Girls are supposed to like you. You actually don't think you've met a girl that didn't like you before. But eventually she shows you what a tarsier is on her wristbound, and you bemoan the fact that Beast Boy might actually have something on you, there.

Why couldn't you have gotten powers that turn you into an actual puppy? Girls love puppies. But no, you got the powers that allow you to bench press an ocean liner, and fly, and burn through rock with your eyeballs, and tear the support beams out of buildings with your brain if you get too upset in the heat of things.

Actually, pretty much everything except that last one is kind of cool.

But still.

* * *

You walk past Temperance and Chastity seated at their desks and straight into your mother's office - you would've been able to hear if she was meeting with someone through the door, and she isn't, but you don't think you would've cared, anyway. The Oval Office is the mudroom of your childhood; the place where you go right after school is over and throw off your bag and your shoes and maybe your clothes a few times when you were younger. You walk in, let the arm of one of the couches strike you in the invulnerable knees, and go down into the pillows face-first. You groan loudly into the furnishments. 

Your mother turns a page and waves her hand - you don't have to look, you can hear it all keenly, the little whisk of air over her fingers. You can feel Mercy rolling her eyes as she passes you, and the doors click closed behind her as you kick yourself over, grabbing one of the throw pillows and mashing it against your chest.

"It's not  _fair_ ," you whine. 

"Ah," your mother says, not even looking your way, "so you're here to complain about the fundamental injustices of the world. Planning to visit the classics? What'll it be? Starvation? Genocide? Homelessness? Oppression?"

"I shouldn't have to stay off patrol," you say, "my training's going just fine."

"Oh, I see. You're not here to protest real injustice, you're here to protest the injustice that you, a superpowered metahuman, should have to stoop to the level of gaining real mastery over your powers, lest you accidentally murder more people that - let's be frank - I don't really care about and whom the world will not miss. That _does_ sound like quite the burden. My condolences." 

You bite the inside of your lip, her words like small electric shocks down the front of your sternum. You kind of hate your mother sometimes. "It was an accident," you say, trying not to sound as hurt as you feel.

"It was," she agrees, looking up at you, and it hurts even more somehow when she does that. "And if you do not master your powers, there will be more accidents, and eventually you will accidentally hurt someone you actually care about."

Your chest sears with guilt. "I care about everyone," you say, and even though it's the truth, it feels like a lie.

"No, you don't," your mother says, flicking the paper file on her desk closed. "Not equally, anyway, nor should you. In this world, there are people who matter and people who don't. No matter what your father says, you can't afford to behave otherwise. You don't have the luxury of endless compassion, none of us do.

"But the key to avoiding causing the people you love pain is to learn how to avoid causing  _anyone_  pain. And that demands you master your powers." 

She stands up from her desk and walks across the carpet to her squat liquor cabinet and fixes herself a drink - a finger of cognac for herself and an ice cold Diet Cotton Candy Gutbuster for you. It's a bit early still, but if you're honest, it would probably be weirder if she  _wasn't_  drinking. Finding your mother without a glass in hand after the sun sets is just eerie, and without it she ends up gesturing with whatever's closest. 

She hands you your soda and you crack it open very carefully, so as not to just pull the top right off. It fizzes and pops against your lips, so sweet it makes your gums ache. Sugar makes you feel a little less bad about complaining.

"She keeps trying to make me meditate, and it's totally not working."

Your mother sits down across from you, still looking very unsympathetic. "The meditation itself, or the trying to make you?" 

"Either?"

"Have you successfully meditated at all?" she asks.

"Ma," you whine.

"Conner," she says, not letting you have it even for a second. "Have you successfully meditated for any duration of time."

"Not exactly."

"Then you have absolutely no proof that meditation wouldn't help. Don’t waste my time, Conner, and while you’re at it, stop wasting _yours_.”

" _Maaaa_ ," you whine, tipping your head back. She scoops a newspaper off the center table and  _whap_ s you over the head with it.

"Don't you 'ma' me," she growls, sounding a  _lot_  like your Meemaw Kent when she does it. "Dedicate yourself to learning, or don't complain."

"But she keeps telling me to stop thinking. I can't  _stop thinking_ , thinking is like... all I do when I'm not on patrol." You take a deep swig of your soda, then slap it down on the table without a coaster, bending the can a little. You flop your arms out melodramatically. "What the heck am I supposed to do when I'm just sitting there doing nothing? What else is there to  _do_  but think?"

Your mother hums thoughtfully, crossing one leg over the other, but she doesn't say anything immediately, so you just keep talking. Sometimes it feels like she's the only person in the world you can really talk to. You kind of hate that, too.

"She keeps telling me to relax, but I don't even feel like I know how. It's like we're using the same word but we mean totally different things and I just... I mean, since Hong Kong all I've  _done_  is relax. I haven't even been allowed to do anything else. I just want to be out there doing something. Anything."

Your mother gives you a look.

"Well, okay, anything other than accidentally  _murdering more people_ , god, Ma, would you leave it alone?"

"Do you actually want that?"

You're not sure what you want, but her tone tells you the right answer. 

"I- ...no," you say, after a long pause. "I guess not.

"It was an accident," you say again, when she doesn't respond, because the sugar isn't helping anymore.

"That doesn't undo it," she says, more gently than you're expecting. 

Your eyes feel warm, and your ears prickle, and your throat feels thick. You pick up the newspaper with your TK and drape it over your face. You hear your mother stand up, and after a moment, you feel her sit down on the arm of the couch near your head, carefully twisting at the coarse strands of your hair.

"Don't waste time failing to learn from your mistakes, Conner," she says softly, fingers drawing slow, calming patterns along the bare sides of your scalp. You bite the inside of your lip and she presses her thumbs into your temples. "Regret is not necromancy."

"I thought you said you didn't care about them," you say, more accusingly than you mean to.

"I don't," she says. "I care about  _you_. Learn from this. Quickly. And then feel free to think of it only as an obstacle you surmounted, and nothing else."

You try not to give away your position by sniffling. You're pretty sure you succeed, but the pain is too real and hot for you to really know, and anyway, your mother can smell tears the way sharks can smell blood. You're waiting for her to take her hands away, to leave the office or send you away so she doesn't have to deal with you getting emotional, which, especially with recent events, probably isn't a terrible survival strategy.

But she pretends not to notice, scritching a little behind your ears instead. 

You're sure she's completely screwing up the shape of your fauxhawk.

You kind of love your mother sometimes. 

* * *

You try to chant in sync with Raven, because if you do you feel a little less ridiculous. At least you can float next to her - you can't imagine how absurd this would feel if you were trying to do it on the floor. You feel enough like an idiot as it is. 

"Focus," Raven says, interrupting you mid-chant.

"I'm focusing," you grumble, trying to fight the urge to open your eyes. 

"You're focusing on your feelings," Raven says, poking you in the center of the back again so that you sit up ramrod straight. "You need to focus on the void. On nothingness."

You crack an eye, looking up at her. "Nothingness isn't a thing you can focus on. It's nothing. That's the whole point."

Raven's face doesn't move. "Funny."

"What, no, not funny. Serious. Very serious. How am I supposed to focus on nothing?"

Raven raises an eyebrow. "By doing exactly what you just said."

"By focusing on nothing."

Raven folds her arms, looking at you expectantly.

"That's not helpful!" you say, and both your eyes are open now. You feel frustration flexing beneath the muscles of your face like a sinus headache. "I have to focus on  _something_."

"No," Raven says, and you have a feeling you're about to receive a lecture. "What you  _have_  to do is separate your emotional mind from your powers. What you  _have_  to do is find a midway point between letting your imagination run wild and giving up on consciousness altogether. What you  _have_  to do. Is  _focus_. Because if you can't do that, then you're not ready for this."

"What? What does that even mean?!"

"It means that I don't want an invitation to what appears to be a really  _rocking_  pity party you're having for yourself. I want you to come here, shut up, and then dig down deep and find a way to make your brain do it too. Meditation is the first step in a staircase, Superboy. And you're either ready to take it, or you're not."

"Look, I didn't ask for this, okay?!" Before you can stop yourself, you're on your feet, and you're suddenly glad you're so much bigger than she is in every direction. It's making you feel like you can at least  _front_  confidence, because really, it feels like she's just made you much, much smaller, like a gerbil controlling a giant robot body. "I didn't want this, Dad doesn't have powers like this and if he did, we wouldn't even be here right now, so how about you give me a  _break,_ already!"

Raven narrows her eyes at you, and you get goosebumps. Any sign of emotion on her pale face - skin not pink so much as it is chalky grey - sends something in you running for the hills. You want to curl up as tiny as a pill bug.

"This isn't something you choose," she says, rough voice deadly soft now. You try not to hunch your shoulders in defensively. 

She jabs her finger against your chest and it almost sends you stumbling back, blinking in shock. "This isn't something you got to pick out in a store, it's not something you get to play with when it's fun and put back in it's box when you're tired of it. You either learn how to control this, or you spend the rest of your life at its mercy. So  _no_ ," she snarls, "I'm not going to 'give you a break, already'. You're either going to start trying -  _really_  trying - or you're going to go back to your room and enjoy _house arrest_  until you're ready. Because until then, you're doing nothing but waste my time."

"I  _am_  trying!" you say, feeling like this has all gone horribly awry. "But I can't just sit here and do  _nothing_!"

"Yes, you can," Raven says, folding her arms. "You just won't. So  _leave_ , and come back when you're willing to start."

"We still have three more hours of training left!"

"Not anymore," says Raven, shaking her head. 

You don't really have anything to say to that, so you sort of have to leave. You make as big of a show of it as you can, stomping over to the door and almost wrecking the biometric lock when you key in your override. Mercy doesn't even have the decency to look surprised to see you. She stands up as you march past, glancing back at Raven with what might be curiosity, but just as well might not be. 

You get halfway to your room before the anger starts to decay into frustration and confusion, and then further into what might be genuine despair. You pause outside the door and look at Mercy, trying not to sound frantic.

" _Please_  don't tell Mom that just happened."

Mercy laughs at you outright. "You're funny," she says. 

You frown, bitterness slicing through your chest, feeling like nothing could be further from the truth, and leave her there, laughing at you. You punch one of the sconces off the wall and don't even bother figuring out where it lands. Lupe'll get it, you figure, and anyway, you've sort of had it with dealing with the consequences of your own actions for one day. You crashland on your bed and yank your Xbreak controller off the dresser with your TK. You catch it midair and hurry out of your own brain and into the virtual world of WarCrime, hoping that a few hours shooting holes in pixels will help drown out the noise of your own embarrassment.

A half an hour later you're in the hallway, scooping glass and metal shards from the sconce up into your invulnerable hand. You tidy up as best you can and decide you're going to skip dinner before curling back up with your video games. Mercy knocks on your door and you yell something at the television like you're wearing a headset. You're not, though. You never do. Hurts your ears.

She leaves you alone, which is a surprise and a relief, and Lupe shows up with your dinner about an hour later. Three black bean burgers with plenty of barbecue flavor potato chips between the salsa and mayo, a buttery side of mashed potatoes with pepper, and spinach salad with goat cheese and dried cherries –- all your favorites, which means not only has your mother heard, but your dad has too. Your mother never lets you get away with that much starch in a meal unless Dad pulls out the puppy eyes and says something about how it can't be that bad to let you get away with it just this once. 

You try to swallow your guilt, thinking about how they probably waited for you to start eating - your dad especially long because he's a sap, and because he doesn't really get how you operate. They probably had things they wanted to say to you, comforting things, maybe, and now they aren't going to say them because you felt like hiding in your room, instead. Just a second ago you'd just started to think you couldn't feel shittier, and you were dead wrong. You feel like something worse than shit, now. Your happiness levels are subterranean. 

Lupe sets your food down -– with a Gutbuster on the side, Christ, Mom never lets you have those two days in a row, Dad must've pulled out all the stops and that makes you feel even worse -– and looks curiously up at the wall.

"What...?"

"Oh, uh... Nothing. Just... nothing. You don't have to worry about it. Bumped my head and it just snapped right off, see?" You show her the pieces in the trashcan, and she starts fussing worriedly over your head, like she thinks you'll have a bruise or something.

"It's okay," you say in Spanish, feeling like you're on an emotional elevator that only goes down. "No worries."

Lupe huffs, air blowing out her fat old cheeks, and swats your arm.

"What can I do but worry?" she says in Spanish. "You're too clumsy not to worry about. I thank God every day that you haven't tripped headfirst into a volcano yet, you silly boy."

You kind of wish you _could_ trip headfirst into a volcano right now, but you bend down and endure a kiss on the forehead all the same.

* * *

You don't know what to do after Lupe leaves and you eat. The thought of trying to play video games while you're steeped in your own unhappiness just sounds loathsome. You try surfing the internet for a little bit, and you text Rex and Virgil, but Rex always goes to sleep at 9 and Virgil's going to see a concert with Jaime that they think might get rowdy later, and needless to say, you're not invited. Well, you would be, but you're not allowed out of the house, and nobody - including you - is willing to go toe-to-toe with your mom on that. 

You try texting Cassie, but her wristbound's almost always off when she's on Themyscera, and this time is no exception. Her most recent activity on Facespace is an entire  _album_  of pictures from when she and Tula went swimsuit shopping last week, and looking at it just makes you feel depressed. You miss both of them - Cassie a little more, out of obligation, but it feels like it's been ages, even though it's only been a few days. Cassie'd know what bullshit this is.

You call the West house, and Artemis picks up and tells you Iris just went out with some "friends". You know what that means, and you know she knows you know what that means. She's gentle, but like she doesn't know exactly what to say to you. You and Artemis don't talk much, and you know from Iris' stories that she's always been a little awkward around kids, a little rough around the edges.

"I can put BJ on if you want."

BJ's a giant tool bag, and you hate him. Everybody hates him. You're pretty sure that if she was drunk enough, you could get his own mother to admit she hates him. Hell, even  _BJ_  hates BJ. BJ's the  _worst._

"No, thanks," you say, trying to sound nonchalant about it. "Is Wally there?"

"He and Iris headed out together. I'm sorry Conner," she says, and she means it. That bothers you.

"It's fine," you say resolutely, and after she promises to have Iris text you back ("Sure. I'll be up. Thanks, Mrs. West."), you throw your head against a pillow and scream into it, throwing your wristbound away to parts unknown.

Nothing helps, and you can't distract yourself, so at an obscenely early hour of night you kick your clothes off and inter yourself in bed, clamping a pillow over your ears to try and smother the noise your own brain makes. 

You fall asleep after some restless tossing and turning, desperately trying not to think, trying over and over to force yourself to think of nothing.

Instead, you fall asleep and just have nightmares about Hong Kong until you wake up, sweaty and miserable and alone at 3 in the morning.

You just lay there for a second, heart racing, before you realize everything in your room is floating about two feet off the ground.

You sit bolt upright, and everything crashes to the floor at once, leaving you wincing and maybe shaking a little. You must've started doing it in your sleep –- your brain told you that you were in danger, and you reacted now exactly the way you did five days ago. Your power tried to protect you.

For the first time since you were a kid, you feel very scared of yourself, frightened of what you're capable of.

You need to talk to someone. Anyone. You almost go to the panel on your wall –- it's 3 am. Your mother is almost definitely still up. But you get up and your foot touches the hard carbonite of your wristbound and you pause.

You know somebody else who is also definitely still up. 

You punch in the number and wait.

Damian picks up after only three rings, sounding alarmingly coherent and very, very cranky. "Kent. Be brief."

"Wha, come on, you definitely just got off patrol."

"Yes, and I was just about to turn in. So I'll say it again: be. Brief."

You roll your eyes a little. 'Turn in.' Christ. What  _century_  is he from?

"I need to talk to you."

"You  _are_  talking to me."

"Look, for awhile. Okay?"

"No. Goodnight, Kent."

"Wh, Damian!"

The line is dead. He already hung up on you. You call back, but he doesn't pick up. You call back again. And again. And again.

He picks up after the fifth time.

" _What._ "

"Don't be rude, man."

"It is three-twenty in the morning, and you called _me._ How am _I_ the rude one in this situation?"

"Dami, come on, I need you right now."

Damian sighs, loudly, like Atlas might after accepting the weight of the world. "I really, really doubt that."

"I just did it again."

You hear it as Damian perks up. "'It'?"

"Yeah, I did the thing."

"How? When? Why? Any structural damage? What did it feel like?"

"Uh, I don't know, man, I started dreaming about doing it and then all the furniture was floating."

Damian scoffs. "That isn't  _it_. That's not what you did."

"I mean it is on a  _small scale_ ," you argue.

"Small scale is nothing," Damian says. "You dismantled a hotel. It's not  _it_  until you dismantle another one."

"Man, don't say it like that. What happened was...messed up." You narrowly avoid cursing. You're not all that proud of yourself. "I messed up."

"You achieved your objective. I don't see the problem."

"I killed people, man. People died."

Damian sniffs dismissively. "That's what people do."

"Man, don't say that. That sounds like something my mom would say."

"Your mother is a brilliant woman," Damian says, but you can tell you've insulted him. "Civilian casualties are a part of the business. I might be following somebody else's rules for now, but I have a fundamental understanding of the brevity of the human condition, even if you don't."

"Dad wouldn't have let anybody die," you say, and you suddenly can't breathe very well, because you know that's true.

Damian scoffs. "Don't be stupid. He wouldn't have had a choice. Neither did you."

You don't say anything, so he keeps going. "Kent. When it comes down to a choice between protecting yourself and your own, and killing a stranger, it's not really a choice. Even if you can't acknowledge that, something in you can. And I'm glad."

"Nine people are dead," you say.

"But Drake is alive," Damian says, and hearing it put that frankly makes your head hurt.

You don't really know how to respond to that, so instead you say, in a voice weaker than you want to: "You know about meditating and stuff, yeah? You, like... meditate. Right?"

" _You._ Are my best friend. Obviously, I meditate."

"That's cold, man."

"What can I say? You're Smallville stupid, and Metropolis stubborn. Honestly, I think we all deserve the knighthood just for putting up with you."

"Look, can you just help me?"

"With  _meditation_? I don't know if there's anyone on  _Earth_  who can help you with that."

"Yeah, well, Raven's trying. It's not going so great."

"I thought she'd already given up on you."

How- No. Wait. Of course Damian knows, because Damian works with Batman, and nothing is ever a secret from Batman. You groan, flopping back on your pillows. "Tell your boss he's an asshole."

"He's not my boss," Damian gripes. "And I will  _not_  tell him that."

"She didn't give up on me," you complain. "She said I wasn't ready, and that I wasn't allowed back until I  _was_. I don't even know what that means. How the he--ck," you catch yourself, "am I supposed to get  _ready_  to meditate? That's just dumb."

"The point is to clear your mind. If you have anything that's preventing that, simply remove it."

" _Remove it_? What am I, a neurosurgeon?"

Damian barks a mean little laugh, but it actually makes you smile. You haven't been able to make anyone really laugh – _with_ you, not _at_ you – since Sunday. You like making Damian laugh. It's hard, and it's always worth it.

"A pre-frontal lobotomy certainly couldn't  _hurt_  your chances."

"Uh, I think it would hurt a lot of  _other_  things."

"Oh, please. We both know you don't _think_."

"Dami," you say, because he's getting annoying. He's clearly been one-lining it all evening, and it's making you jealous.

"If you’re thinking too much – if you can't focus on anything long enough to drown out the rest, then you're clearly fixating on something," says Damian. "It doesn't take a genius to guess what."

You swallow thickly. "...yeah."

"Make peace with it, Kent. Whatever you have to do. Make peace with it, and move past it. People like us don't have the luxury of closure or real regret. We need you out there. So do what you have to, to be okay. And then  _be okay._ "

You bite the inside of your lip, resisting the urge to tell him it's not that simple. You glance over at the wall panel and sigh. "...thanks, man. Thanks for talking to me."

"It's nothing," Damian says, which is a lie. "If you absolutely  _must_  speak with someone, you might call Drake, next. You aren't the only one with an overactive guilt complex."

You feel like a cage of butterflies has burst open in your chest. You choke back the tickle of too many wings in your throat. "Uh, yeah!" you say with too much enthusiasm. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Damian gags a little on his end and you blush. "You're disgusting. I'm disgusted with myself for even engaging with you."

"Dude, shut up! Tim's- Just shut up, man!"

"Go to  _sleep_ , Kent," Damian says.

"Yeah, fine," you say, feeling at least a little better. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Kent," Damian says, a little more nicely than you thought he was capable of.

* * *

 

You've lived with your parents more than long enough to recognize the signs of an argument the moment you step into the West Wing. A little beforehand, honestly –- Mercy never leaves your mother's side when she's arguing with your dad, a habit left over from what everyone seems to think of as "the good old days". Honor's the one waiting outside your door in her stead, her hijab butter yellow with a pearl pin.  

The West Wing is, as always, organized chaos –- countless bodies moving to uninteresting destinations, phones ringing and people typing and talking and arguing about things you couldn't care less about, military movements in who-knows-where and shareholders suing such-and-so. It's too much noise. You don't know how your dad puts up with it; it gives you a headache on your best day. But there's a weird pall that hangs over everything, today. People get out of your way faster than they usually do, and no one says 'good morning.' As you approach the Oval Office, you find the halls lined with your mother's honor guard, all of them with eyes directed towards the closed doors thereof. You wave a little to Chastity and you see her tighten her jaw, like you've come at a spectacularly bad time. 

As soon as you near the secretaries' desks, you can hear them like they're standing right next to you, and you really wish you couldn't, because they're talking about you.

"...ing the fact that it's completely amoral—"

"Oh my  _goodness_ ," your mother says, all sarcasm, "'Amoral'? Someone's been reading their dictionary."

"–you'd only be making a bad situation worse, he has enough blood on his hands as it is!"

"Blood on his hands?  _Blood on his hands_ , the only blood that's causing any problems here is  _yours_."

"Compassion is not a  _weakness_ , Lex."

"Compassion is the inherent flaw of the human  _species_! And you've handed it off to him like a damn  _Olympic torch_ , without even passing consideration for the consequences!" She's up on her feet, now, and you're sort of surprised she wasn't already - you're not watching. Bad enough you have to hear it play out, you don't want to have to watch it, too. "It was the two of you who decided what did and didn't constitute acceptable collateral damage - a choice which, I will remind you, has sent the income tax in this country  _into the stratosphere_  - and it has fallen to me to do damage control. You forfeited the right to waltz in here and complain about how I do it a _long_ time ago." 

"There are other ways! There are other ways to build good will that don't involve just  _eliminating_  anyone who gets in the way!"

"Are they ways that also take ten minutes?" 

" _Lex!"_

"Do you have even the most  _remote_  understanding of how much time and money and manpower I have to invest into making any  _one_  of your little kerfuffles go away? We are talking millions of dollars here, Clark, not the least of which has already been  _spent._ "

"So  _unspend it_!" your dad yells, and you try to avoid the urge to shrink back. He's got a voice like Zeus when he's angry, commanding and dangerous. "Before you waste any more of your precious money!"

Your mother comes back with such thunder that more than a few of her security staff  _does_  cower, averting their eyes and pursing their lips. "My  _precious money_  which I use to fix everything you  ** _break_** , you mean?! My precious money which finances your  _every individual fuck-up_  and protects you from every _other_ person who'd like nothing better than to mount your **_fantastically_** _thick head_  on a spike and post it over the World Summit,  ** _that_** _precious money?!_ "

You knit your brow and toe the carpet just a second before you brush past Honor, because if it goes any further, priceless artifacts are going to get thrown. The door's locked (you think?), but you don't realize that until you've already pressed down on the handle and busted the mechanism. It opens just fine, anyway, and you find your dad in full costume with his fists balled tight, your mother poised against the front of her desk looking like a hooded cobra ready to strike.

They just sit there, silently staring at each other, like you just walked uninvited onto the set of a movie and they're refusing to break character and humor you. "Uh," you say. "Guys?"

Your dad looks over first, which you can tell means he loses this round. He's red in the face, and a little red in the eyes, too, like he's having a great deal of difficulty restraining his heat vision. Given the intensity of the argument, you can't say you're surprised. He shakes his head a little and raises an eyebrow, like he wants to talk but he's on a yell-only setting. "I knocked," you say.

"No, you didn't," your mother says. She hasn't taken her eyes off your dad, even now. Her eyes seem to glow, too, in their own way. She looks at your dad like he's prey. 

Your dad looks at you, and then looks at your mother. "I'll leave you two to talk," he says, and his voice sounds a little raw from yelling. "We're not done having this conversation," he says to your mother.

"Yes, we are," she says. She hasn't moved once since you entered the room, and it's clear to you that your dad has noticed.

Your dad shifts, then moves out of the room past you, turning his back to her. He puts a hand on your shoulder as he passes you, and it feels big, and solid, and warm, the way it always does. His Justice League communicator  _beeps_  sharply as he walks out, and he tips his head down as he answers it.

"Go ahead," he says, and even though you know he's saying it to Oracle, it feels like he's saying it to you.

You look back at your mother, but she's still not looking at you. She's watching your dad like she wants to sink her teeth into him, and as Mercy walks out of the room and closes the doors behind you, you sort of feel like you're being left in an enclosure with a hungry jaguar. 

You're starting to feel like coming here was a bad idea.

Your mother stares after your dad for what feels like a long time. When she finally turns her eyes to you, you really wish she hadn't. They're the color of Kryptonite, bright and frightening and dangerous. She folds her arms slow, and you have to make another conscious effort not to show any weakness. She looks you up and down once, which makes your skin tingle with nervousness.

You take all of your fear and your anxiety and you swallow it. And you say, with as little feeling as possible, "Are you planning to kill the witnesses?"

She stares at you, expression beguiling. There's something just at the corner of her mouth that could be a smile, but it's not. You know that look, you know what it means. It means you've caught her, but you can't stop her, and she's not going to tell you the truth because the truth is illegal and there are ears everywhere. She's not going to say anything, because to say anything would be incriminate herself, but in a few days or weeks or months when you've forgotten about this, she's going to remember you did this, and she's going to go out of her way to make sure you think twice about doing it again.

You've done your thinking, though. You've been doing nothing but think for days.

"You know I don't want you to do that, right? You know that I don't want that, and it won't help me."

"Conner," your mother says, in a voice that's so much sweeter than the look on her face that it gives you goosebumps. "I'm _very_  confident at this point that you have absolutely no  _idea_  what will help you."

"...is this about the Raven thing?"

"What do you think?"

"I think this is about the Raven thing."

"That's very astute."

"I'm not done with the Raven thing."

"You're done when I say you're done," she says, sounding more like herself, sharp and mean. You swallow again, try to keep steady.

"You don't get to say when I'm done with this. Only I get to say when I'm done with this. That's the nature of the problem."

Your mother narrows her eyes. She doesn't move, but the tendons of her dominant hand flex against the skin, standing out like the skeletal pistons of some intricate, powerful machine. At times like this, you completely forget that compared to you, she's very delicate. She doesn't look delicate. She looks like she could skin you alive with just her brain and eat you for dinner.

"Dad's right," you say, against your better judgment. 

A look flashes across her face that promises such a quick and invariable ascent to violence that you actually  _do_  take a step back, just in case. It vanishes, though, as quickly as it appeared. She stays still, in front of you. You're hyper-aware of her – the sharp, warm smell of her cologne worn thin in the night, and the sound of her heartbeat, and the small sound of her clothes and her jewelry moving against her skin. Skin the same color as yours, you think, just a shade or two darker. Everyone thinks you're your father's son, but you know better. 

You've always been a Luthor first, and this is the battlefield you were born to stand on. You hold yourself still, trying to mimic her, Alexander to her Aristotle. 

"Do  _not_  come into this room and defend your father to me," she says, voice deadly soft. 

"I'm not," you start, and she cuts you with a look. "I'm saying… killing more people doesn't make me look better. Erasing my mistakes can't be about just eliminating anyone who knows about them."

"Do you have any greater control over your telekinetic powers now than you did two days ago?"

She has to know you don't, but it's about making you say it. "No. But-"

She interrupts you, tongue as sharp as a blade. "Then that is  _exactly_  how we will erase your mistakes, and we will do that because it is the most expedient way to ensure that no one gets it in their head that you aren't quite as heroic as everyone thought you were. We  _tried this_  your father's way."

" _Raven_  was Dad's way?"

"Raven was Dad's way," she says, like she's barely resisting the urge to spit the words. 

"But he doesn't even like her."

Your mother shakes her head dismissively, and you realize you've taken things off-track -– you've said something to pull her away from her throne and towards the place where she's your mother only. "I have an actual  _deficit_  of interest where your father's idiosyncrasies are concerned. Whether he does or doesn't like her is beside the point; she's more than qualified to help you with your little...' _problem_.'" 

You flush with shame, but you can't back down now. You know that. "Then let her."

"I've tried," she says, and you flush deeper, ears tingling with embarrassment. 

"Mom, I'm serious, let me handle this. I'm an adult, you can't... You can't just run around cleaning up after me forever."

"An  _adult_ ," your mother hisses, "does not throw temper tantrums when things don't go their way. You have behaved like a child, and so I have no choice but to treat you like one."

You could call her on her hypocrisy, but for one thing you enjoy living, and for another thing you're not sure she's wrong. 

So instead, you say, "I know." 

You blush deeper, but you refuse to look down, away from her. "I know I have, and I... Look, I had to work some stuff out. On my own. I know I should've come down and talked to you last night. I know. I should've... stepped up and made sure you knew you didn't have to do this for me, this time."

You bite your lip from the inside. "...I know this isn't the first time I've killed people. It can't be. Just... statistically. It just can't be."

And  _that_  finally seems to give her pause - not like she was moving before, but something in her expression softens, just slightly. Her brows pull back a little. Her eyes don't look quite like poison, when you say that. You swallow again.

"I know I've...busted through buildings and taken down bridges and thrown oil tankers at people. You've never kept it a secret that dad's way of doing things comes with a pricetag. A  _big_  pricetag that  _you_  pay. ...I know this can't be the first time I've hurt people. It's just the first time I was aware enough to notice before you could make it all disappear."

Your mother watches you, her heartbeat steady, like a pendulum.

"Do you know what the actual danger in forming a heroic identity based in a moral binary is?" she asks, finally, her voice disturbingly calm. You can't tell if it's a question you're supposed to answer, but she speaks before you can, anyway: "The danger is that you disallow yourself any room for public blunder. You’re no longer allowed any actions that take place in the gray area of morality. You are either completely good, or you are completely evil. So when civilians die on your watch, when an explosion takes out a national monument, when someone's puppy gets crushed by a tree that falls within a mile radius of any battle you wage against your enemies, what do you become?"

She doesn't have to tell you the answer to that one.

"The bad guy," you say.

"The bad guy," she agrees, shaking her head a little. "You don't have room to make mistakes. You don't have room to be fallible. You don't have room to be anything less than a paragon." 

She stands up from the edge of her desk, then, no longer leaning. She paces slowly forward, arms folded. 

"Infallible people do not exist, Conner. And people who pretend the contrary are  _dangerous._ They're foolish, and they're self-important and short-sighted, and they're completely uncomprehending of the repercussions of their own actions."

She steps in front of you, and you can tell it's a power play – she's still taller than you, just slightly, and in heels it's just exacerbated. You look up at her, and you get why people all but fall to their knees around her sometimes. Your mother is easily the most powerful person you've ever met, and your dad is _Superman_. You bite your lip again, but you don't step back, and you don't swallow. You're not going to be the person who bows to her right now.

"Your father's insistence on identifying as the ultimate good means that anything that falls outside of that has to be made invisible. Who do you imagine makes that possible?"

"You, probably. And Bruce."

"Very good," your mother says, although it doesn't feel like she's praising you at all. 

"That doesn't have to be me. I don't want that to be me."

"It's a little late to identify as anything else."

"Look, I'm your son, too," you say, and again her expression dials back. You're winning this – it's taking longer than you wanted it to, but you're definitely winning this. 

"Ma," you say, before she can respond, "I get it, okay? I get it. You have to make this go away so that I get to stay Superboy. Those're the rules, and you aren't the one who made them up. I let other people die to save a friend, and those other people had families who now know that I'm something other than the ultimate good.

"And I'm fine with that, y'know? I can't  _be_  infallible. I've seen what it does to Dad, I've seen what it does to  _you_. And that can't _be_  me.

"But I don't want anyone else to die. So here's what I think: I think I go, I do clean-up, I meet with the families, I show the world I'm a stand-up guy who owns his mistakes. I can move way faster and way more efficiently than anyone you could possibly hire in my place, and I'll do it for free. Think about it. The PR payout's immediate, and then I come right back here and start doing anything and everything I have to in order to get this thing under control."

Your mother's watching you, a foot or two away, arms still folded, expression less livid, more thoughtful. You try not to hold your breath, and you also try not to babble, because you want to. 

"I know this isn't the first time I've messed up," you say, when you can't take the silence anymore. "I just want this to be the first time I actually fix things on my own."

Your mother taps her right forefinger against her arm and hums noncommittally. "Raven said you weren't ready to resume training with her."

"Yeah, I... I think I know what she meant by that." You pause, not knowing if it's safe to confide in your mother as a son, rather than as a soldier. "...I haven't been able to...relax. About this. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm just... I want to _do_  something. Something that doesn't involve more people getting hurt, something that helps me put this to bed."

You remember what Damian said, and you continue: "I know I don't get to sit around and feel bad about this forever. I know I probably don't get closure, or anything like that. But I feel like this is the only way to make peace with what I did, so I can move past it. That's not really what I want to do. But it's what I have to do, I know."

Your mother watches you, and slowly, you see the venom slip out of her expression. You see her shoulders begin to relax. She doesn't smile at you or anything, but she turns her head and puts a finger to her own comm link.

"Mercy," she says. "Call him off."

When it's done, she turns back to you, looking you over appraisingly. You try not to let your relief be too apparent. 

"Temperance and Honor will accompany you abroad," she says, coolly. "Try not to start anymore international incidents."

"Thank you," you say, meaning it.

"This will  _not_  be the last time we have a conversation like this," she says. "The next time, I expect you to be adult enough to initiate it yourself."

"Deal," you say. And then: "...how long is Dad on the couch for?"

"I haven’t decided yet."

"Can you keep it down to...I don't know. A day or two? For me?"

"Don't push it," your mother growls. Behind you, Mercy opens the doors. “Is there anything else?”

“Nope,” you say quickly.

“Good,” she says, then waves you out. “Go away.”

You zoom to safety as soon as Mercy steps out of the way. You're not sure your mother feels it when you zoom back again to kiss her on the cheek, but you're pretty sure she does.

Nobody else is dying because of you today. Small victories, you tell yourself. Small victories.

* * *

It's four hot, grueling days before you're home again. In Hong Kong you do most of the talking – Temperance can't speak Cantonese and Honor has never been much of a people person – and also most of the running, and the measuring, and the heavy lifting, and the flying. The repairs are the easiest part, of course; infrastructure that would've taken years to reconstruct springs up in  _hours_  under your hands, and when the time moves slow, it does because you move  _fast_ , faster than any of the construction workers have ever seen, except on television. You meet a few young local heroes, sign a few autographs. One of your young fans is a girl you're sure you'll meet again when she has a better costume; you meet her when she accidentally follows you into the bathroom, so excited to meet you she just phases straight through the wall as you're getting your pants down. She's thoroughly humiliated and buys you dinner after, which, by your mother's rules, makes it a date. Sometimes when she's talking, she'll get so worked up that she'll phase through her chair. It's really cute, which is what makes you doubly resolved not to tell Cassie about it.

The families are the hardest.

The hotel was a 24-hour businessmen's hotel, and the victims were mostly bachelors, adult sons or young fathers. One was a wayward husband. "All I could think was good riddance," his widow admits in a quiet voice, hands resting in her lap and eyes resting on the floor. "It's too bad it was you and not someone evil. If he'd died honorably, I would have that, at least."

You make the rounds, switching to Vietnamese or Thai with the families of the cleaning staff. One of the old ladies who died - Bethari, age 79 - was in charge of the commissary, and her husband only speaks Javanese. Your Javanese is abysmal, so you end up speaking to one of their grandchildren, a young woman named Lestari, who's a few years older than you and acts as a translator. 

"He wants to know why you did what you did," Lestari demands, brown cheeks flushed with righteous anger. "He wants to know who you think you are, coming here after everything that happened."

You're pretty sure that's  _not_  what he said at all - your Javanese isn't  _that_  terrible - but you owe Lestari everything you owe him, if not more. "I was trying to protect someone else, and I lost control of my powers," you say in Cantonese. "I know I can't make up for what happened. But I thought you deserved my apology in person."

"You're a pig-fucker," Lestari spits, looking like she wants to hit you.

"Lestari," her grandfather says in perfect English. "Go easy on him. He's only a child."

You turn to look at him, and his eyes are wet with unshed tears. Knowing he would've understood you if you'd just led with your mother tongue makes you feel afraid of him, somehow, like he sees too much of you too easily. 

You brace yourself, and shake your head. Lestari is shaking with anger and hurt, and you can see that she's nearly crying, herself.

"It's okay," you say, lowly, in Cantonese. "I don't need you to go easy on me. If you hate me, that's alright."

"I do," Lestari says, proudly. 

"Okay," you say, even though it feels like she's punched you.

When you get back to your own hotel later that night you're greeted by picketers instead of fans, and you take your lumps then too. Better you than anyone else, you think. You talk Temperance out of moving you to a room without windows, and go out to the balcony to make a point. You look down, marveling at how small everything is once you get enough distance from it. You wonder if your dad ever feels like this – separate and huge, unbreakable and alone in a breakable world of tiny, delicate people.

Your wristbound chimes with an incoming call around 4 am, which is good because you can't sleep. 

"Sup."

"That's how you answer your phone? 'Sup'?"

Even almost eight thousand miles away, Tim Drake's voice still gives you goosebumps.

"What, come on, who's going to be offended by that?"

"Uh, anybody with a basic grasp of good phone etiquette."

"Yeah, so nobody who ever calls  _me_."

Tim snorts, which is so adorable you kind of want to scream. "Isn't it super late there?"

"Dude, don't fuzz, you know  _exactly_  what time it is here." 

"Yeah," he says, and you can hear him smiling. "I do. Why are you still up?" 

"Can't sleep," you say. You stare out over the city for a second before kicking your legs gently where they're hanging over the edge of the balcony, between the metal railings. "I went to talk to the victims' families today. Most of 'em, at least. I think I have a few more to do tomorrow."

"That sounds like it sucked."

"Yeah," you say, laughing a little despite yourself. "It mega-ultra sucked."

"You want me to come help, tomorrow?" Tim asks after a moment's pause.

"Isn't your leg still busted up?"

"Yeah," Tim says. "But that means Bruce won't miss me."

"Bull," you laugh. "You leave the house any time in the next  _month_  and he'll probably have a conniption fit. And that's assuming Dick doesn't beat him to it."

Tim groans. "Don't even get me started. You know what sucks? Getting aggressively fussed over by four grown men and a kid half my age, _all in Batsuits_."

"Batman  _fusses_?"

"Oh my God, you're kidding, right? Nobody fusses like Batman fusses. Do you know how many times people have come in to fluff my pillows, or read to me, or bring me  _soup_? Do you know how much goddamn soup I've had today? Too much, Conner. Too much soup. A man can only take so much. I am going to turn into a hideous, humanoid amalgamation of chicken and noodles at this point."

"Oh my God, I would kill for some chicken noodle soup. That sounds great."

"Yeah, well, give me a few hours. I'm practically sweating the stuff."

"Gross," you laugh, like the image doesn't make you blush eight different colors.

"...you're doing a good job, kid," Tim says, after a comfortable silence. "I know it doesn't count for much, but I'm really proud of you."

"It counts for plenty," you say, trying not to sound as breathless as you feel.

You two talk then about nothing in particular, for hours and hours until the sun comes up. Not for the first time, you wish dearly that Tim was your same age, so it wouldn't take a broken leg and an ocean between you for you to feel safe talking to him. You want to have sleepovers with him in every sense of the word, and it makes you feel guilty and a little bit deviant, and like you have something _else_ to make sure Cassie never finds out about. 

Your heart aches in your chest, and seeing the sunrise makes you exhausted. "You ready to go?" Tim asks you out of nowhere, sounding a little tired himself, and you realize that for the past few hours, he's been all but sitting next to you, getting you ready to face the day.

"I'm really glad you're okay," you say, all at once. "I'm glad I saved you. I'd do it again." Over and over, you think. You'd save Tim at the expense of a thousand people, and all at once you're not sure that's bad. You know it would hurt you to do, and that it would hurt him, but you're not sure that knowing you would make that decision is wrong.

"Yeah," Tim says, somberly. "I know you would, Kon."

"I know that's crappy," you say, because you do.

"We all have to make choices," Tim says, and you nod, even knowing he can't see you. "They're not all fun to make. They're not all great choices. But they're what we have. You're doing the right thing, right now."

"I'll come over when I get home, okay? I'll bring burgers or something. Something that's not soup."

"How about pork buns?"

"I don't think you're just supposed to come out and ask other dudes for their pork buns. I think that's, like, at _least_  third date material."

"No, come on, like, fresh pork buns from Hong Kong?  _Please_? I'm  _lame_  over here."

"You're lame, alright."

Tim snorts again, and God, you really hope he never stops doing that. Temperance knocks on the door and you glance over.

"Crap. I gotta go."

"Yeah, I know. Do me proud, man."

"Yeah. Thanks, Tim."

"Anytime, Kon. Call me back if you want, alright?"

"Yeah," you say, heart in your mouth. "Later."

* * *

You hate planes – _way_ too loud. It always feels like the engines are perched on either of your shoulders, blasting noise straight into your ears – but you’re too tired to fly yourself back across the Pacific, and you’ve got Temperance and Honor to consider, too. Air Force One arrives to pick you up from Hong Kong International Airport, and your mother comes with it. On the one hand, you kind of feel like a little kid getting picked up from summer camp. On the other hand, after what may be the worst two weeks in your entire life, it’s nice to feel like you’re getting the royal treatment you were born into. Not five seconds out of the stifling tropical heat and Chastity’s handing you a virgin mai tai you don’t feel quite ready for. You flop down in the chair across from your mother and don’t bother putting on your seatbelt for takeoff. 

Your mother watches you intently for a few moments, obviously waiting for your ears to adjust – the roar of acceleration off the airstrip makes you wince. You put your drink in the cupholder, only just starting to feel how tired you are, now that you’re in a truly air-conditioned room for the first time in almost a week.

“Well?” she asks when you’ve reached altitude, and you realize she’s waiting for a report. You’ve never done this before, and being put on the spot makes you feel stupid. 

“Uh.” You clear your throat, trying not to look foolish. “The hotel’s up and inspected. The local officials want to go over it a few more times to check that it’s completely up to code, but I know it’s good. I checked it myself.” You clear your throat again, trying to think of what else there is to say. “I met with everybody, uh, all the survivors. I met up with one guy in the hospital yesterday – he’s got a malignant brain tumor the size of a golf ball. They say if he hadn’t been involved in the collapse they probably wouldn’t have found it in time, so… I mean, that’s good. …another girl called me a pig-fucker, that was new.”

“Well, that's one for the swear jar,” your mother says, sounding disaffected.

“Wha, you _hate_ the swear jar. And that wasn’t even my word, that was a direct quote.”

Your mother raises an eyebrow and you settle in, grumping a little to yourself. You kind of hate her for being so calm and put together. You’re covered in sweat and grossness, and the noise of the plane combined with your exhaustion is making you feel like all five tons of your brain is leaning against the front of your skull.

“So, I guess you and Dad are talking again,” you say.

“Oh, Conner, please,” your mother sighs, shaking her head a little and moving to pick an invisible piece of lint from the shoulder of her suit. “Your father and I never stop talking. We simply... talk louder from time to time.”

“Sure,” you say, but this time you _do_ let your relief show on your face. Your mother’s expression softens too, though she never quite releases the tension in her posture; she stays, one leg crossed over the other, hands on the edges of her chair like it’s a throne, like a half-contented tyrant.

“I’ll expect you to monitor the situation here,” she says. “But it sounds like you’ve resolved the problem for the time being.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I think the one girl might put together some money to sue, but… I guess that’s tomorrow’s problem. Which _I’ll deal with_ when it crops up,” you add, because you can see that telltale look in your mother’s eye.

“Better to be proactive about these things,” your mother says, slowly, like she’s still contemplating it.

“Her grandfather doesn’t have any interest in a lawsuit, and they’re pretty strapped for cash as it is. Assuming he doesn’t die tomorrow, she’ll have to wait years to get a chance at it, and the statute of limitations on this stuff is… pretty short.”

Suspiciously short, if you’re honest, and when you were shopping around trying to get information on this stuff, most of the lawyers you talked to were deeply unwilling to even contemplate the possibility of taking her case. You’re not sure if it’s money that exchanged hands, or if your reputation proceeds you, but either way, you’ve definitely got your mother to thank for that, and you can see on her face that she knows it. She seems a little smug, now that you’ve noticed.

“The spirit of vengeance is not something to be underestimated,” she says. “Keep an eye on it.”

“The spirit of vengeance… Isn’t that where you and Dad got married?”

“Cute,” your mother says like it isn’t, but she’s smirking, so you’re calling that a win.

“This really sucks,” you admit, after a moment. “So…thanks for taking care of it for so long. I don’t know if I could’ve done this a year ago.”

Your mother watches you for a moment, eyes tracing over your face. You’re not sure what she’s looking for – herself, maybe. Or maybe she’s just now noticing how sweaty you are. “You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she says, finally. “You could have easily done this a year ago. The only thing that’s really changed about you from a year ago, ‘til now, is your _mind_. You’re _my_ son, Conner. You can do anything in the world that you set your mind to. Don’t give up so easily.”

You bite the inside of your lip, shifting back a little in your seat to think about that. You’ve always thought that was exclusively your mother’s superpower – wanting things with such relentless ferocity that they simply spring into existence – but maybe she’s right. She’s right about most things, you think. You’re not sure you want her knowing you think that, and you’re definitely sure you won’t be saying it out loud any time soon. But you feel like she’s right. You feel…better, now, than you did before you left. You feel like you actually _did something_ to make up for your mistake, and while it feels like a sort-of-hollow something, a not-in-any-way-equal something, you don’t feel as restless. You don’t feel like your skin’s about to peel back, you don’t feel so itchy, so cagey. Your body is tired, and your brain is a physical presence more than anything, just another bruise that’ll heal in record time.

“What were you gonna do?” you ask. “If I never came to you, and Raven never took me back?”

Your mother waves her hand dismissively. “We’ve known about your telekinesis since you were a child. You think I never formed an exploratory committee to come up with possible technological workarounds if it progressed to a point where you couldn’t keep it under control? I may be human, Conner, but I’m not without _foresight_.” She taps one finger against the arm of her chair, expression thoughtful. “If you still find yourself unable to make progress with Raven, there’s always the technological alternative.”

“Nah,” you say, shaking your head a little. “It’s alright. Thanks, but… I’ll figure it out.”

“As you wish,” your mother shrugs, but she looks very proud of you all at once.


End file.
